My interview with Steven Tyler’s daughter (the other one)

Posted By
Margie Fishman
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June 4, 2012 @ 9:35 pm
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Arts |
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[1]

Not even the nuns could stop Mia Tyler from finding herself as an artist.

As a sixth-grader ata New York City Catholic school, Tyler, the daughter of Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler, pushed the envelope. For a school archaeology project, she sculpted pieces that resembled broken lobster shells, inspired by her mother’s fake fingernails.

She earned a D.

“I swore I would never do art after that,” she recalls.

Eventually, she got over it. Following stints as a plus-size model and actress[2], her latest artistic endeavor is on the other side of the lens, snapping candid photographs of family and friends.

On Friday, Tyler was on hand to present a half-dozen of her photos at Dimensions & Co by Ace boutique in Wilmington as part of the downtown Art Loop.

On Saturday, she joined her boyfriend and best friend, Jesse Kotansky, and his indie rock band[2], The Click Clack Boom, for a performance at World Cafe Live at The Queen.

It was only the third time that Tyler, 33, has displayed her work publicly, since her father gave her a Sony DSLR camera as a birthday present three years ago.

“To revitalize a community, we need fashion, the arts and good vibes,” says Valentine, who is developing his own clothing line.

“Mia’s pictures tell a story,” he adds.

Earlier this year, Hilfiger hired Mia Tyler to spend two months touring with The Click Clack Boom for an on-the-road campaign promoting his menswear line.

Tyler credits Hilfiger, whom she calls “uncle Andy,” for being an ardent supporter of her work. She has exhibited at his New York store RIFF and at the Los Angeles nightclub The Viper Room.

Always intrigued by the strangers who photographed her and her family, Tyler enjoys experimenting with mixed media and unconventional materials, such as leather, wood and aluminum. Her first photograph was of her brother, standing in the kitchen checking his cellphone, wearing only boxer shorts.

One of her most popular images is of her father wearing a suit and staring off into the distance at a family gathering. While sitting in on recent “Idol” auditions, Tyler spent no more than five minutes using a computer program to “paint” the photo in stark red and white. The result is a disarmingly poignant image of her dad.

“It’s a rare moment to catch him when he’s not on stage or on for the crowd,” she says.

In an age where most everyone has a camera tucked into a pocket, Tyler draws inspiration from portrait and fashion photographers Annie Leibovitz and Herb Ritts. But the self-taught photographer maintains that she rarely studies other people’s work, so as not to overly influence her renegade style.

Fascinated by themes of isolation and loneliness, she perceives beauty in decaying structures, such as a rotting roller coaster. Her work is priced from $600 to $5,000.

“Now, every time I walk into a room I see a photographic grid,” she says. “I look at what is part of a photograph and what isn’t.”

Recently, she reconnected with her childhood love of painting, incorporating fantasy imagery from horror movies and seductive depictions of the female form.

As the first plus-size model ever to appear in Seventeen, Tyler received a flurry of thank-you notes from young girls who appreciated her challenging the waif standard. She despised posing in front of the camera, however.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that there weren’t more models my size,” remembers Tyler, who also appeared in Teen People, Us and Vogue. Her television credits include MTV’s “House[2] of Style” and “Celebrity Fit Club.”

In 2008, she released her memoir, “Creating Myself,” which chronicles her upbringing in the chaotic entertainment[2] world, along with her battles with drug addiction and self-mutilation. She was previously married to ex-Papa Roach drummer Dave Buckner.

money I have.”

Rather than make her own clothes, she decided to promote other designers.

Later this summer, she hopes to establish an online retail store, Moral Panic, where customers will find women’s, men’s and children’s clothing (including plus-size and big-and-tall), along with home[2] furnishings that mix a Japanese anime aesthetic with a feminine rocker edge. Storefronts in New York and Los Angeles could follow.

With tattoos covering half her body, the former life coach does not take her art too seriously. She refuses to hire a manager or publicist, rarely venturing out to rub elbows with the art elite.

“This art I’m doing now is the one thing I have just for me,” she explains. “If it’s weird, it’s weird. If it’s sexual, it’s sexual. If somebody doesn’t like it, I don’t care.”